Old Age Ain't for Sissies

I take our dog, Nike for a walk this evening after work, and since the weather (unusual in Bellingham) is actually summer-like, I change into shorts. I'm jogging along the path around the lake and glance down at my thighs. Omigod, I've become an old lady, complete with wrinkly, jiggly skin on my thighs. Okay, so I haven't been working out lately, but squats and leg presses aren't going to do anything about the wrinkled excess of derma loosely covering what once was firm, fit muscles. I have old lady skin. Worse, as I run, I can feel the layer of fat around my middle jogging up and down. How can a person wear a size 3 and still be fat? Believe me, it happens, and it is not pretty. I have a muffin top hanging over my jeans. It is gross.
Jane Fonda - post her "feel-the-burn" fitness guru days - said about reaching 50-ish that women had to make a choice: be thin, and look older, or add a few pounds to avoid the gaunt sunken look that takes over the face of faddishly skinny older women. She chose to add the pounds. She looks great, by the way - but how does she deal with the jiggling fat?

Miscellaneous Musings

I work at a large national department store. It is what someone referred to as a "placeholder" job. I like the term because it implies that this is interim (which it is), not something I will be doing this time next year (I won't) and not a career position (it isn't). Nevertheless, I find what I do interesting and even at times enjoyable. I enjoy helping customers put together an outfit for a special occasion or for a trip - especially if they're traveling to Europe or Asia or somewhere outside the U.S. for the first time, because I can offer them guidance not only in coordinating outfits, but what to wear and what not to wear so they don't look like the classic American tourist traipsing everywhere in sweatshirt, jeans and athletic shoes. I often spend more time assisting individual customers than the potential sale merits. Since we're paid commission, most sales people seek to attach themselves to as many customers as possible. The more customers, the more total sales. If you're spending time with a customer, you're forgoing the chance to claim additional customers - and make more commission. I know this, but I enjoy the customer service part of my job, and if I only concentrated on ringing up sales, I'd be ready to quit today. Which I sometimes am anyway . . . I've discovered that people are lazy slobs when they're shopping, leaving piles of clothes on the floor of the dressing room - apparently for the maids (us) to pick up and put away.

Quote for today, tomorrow, forever

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

Katrina

Like everyone else, we have been watching the images of Katrina's devastation in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on TV and reading about it in the newspaper and on the internet for the past week. It is horrific, and time does not diminish the horror, the pain and the loss - especially for the hurricane's victims. As we watch and read about the destruction, the homes that are destroyed, the lives that are lost or irreparably changed, I can't help thinking about our visit to New Orleans and the surrounding area earlier this year. Steve and I both wonder how the inimitable Captain Ted, our bayou swamp tour guide, is doing. I wonder if he's safe, and if his home in Slidell escaped the storm. I think about Cafe du Monde, where we ate beignets and drank cafe au lait, and hope it will someday soon be serving up those little fried squares of dough (a mouthful of heaven) again. I hope our waitress at the little French Quarter restaurant where we dined on shrimp etouffee escaped safely; I hope the smiling and friendly proprieter at the cafe where we had red beans and rice on our first day in New Orleans is with his family. I grieve for New Orleans, but especially, I grieve for the people and their loss - of their homes, their everyday, ordinary lives, their historic city.

On the Lineham Lake trail 

Rocks and flowers at Waterton NP 

Mountain goats in Glacier NP 

Hidden Lake at Logan's Pass 

Avalanche Lake 

Mt. Moran at Teton NP  

On the Jenny Lake trail 

Glacier National Park

We’re at Glacier RV Park, just a mile west of Glacier National Park. Maggie and Michael, my sister and brother-in-law, are flying in today from Tucson to Kallispell, Montana – 40 miles away - to spend the next 5 days with us. Both of us (we find out later) are wondering what we’ll do for 5 days, but as it turns out, there’s plenty to see and do here. When they arrive, we have a quick lunch and then set off for a late afternoon hike in the park. The hike is on a horse trail through the forest. Along the way, we lose the trail (just as well; it’s dry, dusty and marked with fresh horse poop) and hike for awhile along a crystal-clear river (or maybe it’s a wide creek) etched into glaciated rock. The weather is perfect – sunny and slightly warm but certainly nothing like the Arizona summer they left.
During the next 4 days, we take several hikes and drive the famous Going to the Sun Road, a 52-mile, 2 lane road that bisects the park from east to west. It’s so narrow and full of switchbacks that no vehicle over 21 feet is allowed on it. The scenery is spectacular, enveloping us like a hunger that can’t be satiated. Everywhere we look is color-drenched, wild and breathtaking beauty: rugged tree-covered mountains soaring skyward, steep valleys green and luxuriant from rainfall and melting snow that cascades in waterfalls, and everywhere, those wildflowers, along the road, climbing up the mountainside and down the valleys like careless, colorful splashes of paint.
One of our favorite hikes is the 4-mile Avalanche Lake trail which takes us through the woods to the shore of the shimmering aquamarine lake. Avalanche Lake is a cirque lake, formed by melting ice left in the depression or cirque gouged by one of the park’s 27 glaciers. A glacier is basically moving ice layered with snow, and Glacier National Park’s ice sheets are shrinking as more ice melts than is replaced each winter.
Other hikers we meet on the trail tell us they spotted bears near the lake, but we don’t see them, although Maggie and I find paw prints on the trail that we’re sure are bear tracks.
Another day, we take the Hidden Lake Trail, 3000 feet up at the halfway point on Going to the Sun Road. We encounter mountain goats so tame we almost expect them to walk up to us and beg for food. This 6 mile roundtrip trail climbs steadily up through wildflowers meadows and groves of fir separated by the occasional bent and twisted stunt pine emerging from the rugged rock ledge. At the end of the trail is a panoramic view of Hidden Lake. While the trail is wide and well marked, it’s strenuous; we are astounded by the people we pass on the trail who are making the trek in flip-flops or street shoes, with no hat on a hot, sunny day. It’s bad enough when we see adults in this attire – but when their small children are dressed this way, it’s just plain stupid. We even see a couple pushing a flimsy stroller on the trail as we’re returning; we’re pretty sure they won’t make it very far before realizing the folly of their effort.
At the end of Maggie and Michael’s visit – after having taken hundred and hundreds of photos between us, driving through the park in our open-top Jeep, hiking multiple trails, drinking in the scenery and never feeling full -- we all agree Glacier National Park is a very special place. We will return again someday.
We take Maggie and Michael regretfully to the airport on Aug. 9, and the next day Steve and I pack up the motorhome and pull out. We’re going to Waterton National Park, the Canadian side of Glacier, and then our plans call for us to drive to Banff.

Wednesday, Aug. 10
Waterton National Park, Alberta, Canada
It’s a grey and cloudy day, but there are holes in the clouds through which blue sky gleams. We decide to take a chance that the gloomy weather will clear up, and set off for a hike. We choose the 8.4 km (roundtrip) Lineham Lake trail - a little over 5 miles. We pack water, apples, cheese, peanut butter crackers and mini candy bards in my canvas backpack and drive the 10 miles to the trailhead at the base of a mountain. We’ve both brought shorts just in case the weather warms up; when we arrive at the parking area, Steve changes from jeans to shorts. I decide I don’t trust the weather. We set off up the trail, quickly discovering that it’s uphill all the way. Narrow and rocky, the trail winds through dense forest, then grassy mountain pastures, then into the forest again. Everywhere there are wildflowers – tansy asters, snowy everlasting, harebells, lupine – splashing yellow, lavender, white, red, blue and fuschia across the mountain and along the trail. The exertion of our steady uphill trek forces us to pause frequently to catch our breath. I pretend I’m stopping to look at the view so as not to appear overly wimpy; in truth, I’m furiously sucking in oxygen! We figure the elevation change from the start to the end of the trail is about 1,000 feet or more. Of course, I’m stopping every hundred or so yards to examine rocks or take photos of the flowers and cloud-shrouded mountains in the distance. It’s a challenging but glorious hike, even though the weather doesn’t cooperate – the sky soon vanishes beneath a thick layer of grey. We pass only 2 hikers on the trail, a German couple who report there is no view of Lineham Lake at the end of the trail, despite the name. But they say the flower display makes the hike worth the effort, and we agree. We trudge on through forest an field, coming to a rocky V-shaped canyon that looks like it might be the end of the trail. But the German couple told us there’s a sign marking the trail’s end, and as we look around, we can see scraps of the trail winding through the rocks and into the woods on the other side of the canyon, so we march on over rocks and into the forest again. Eventually, we reach the sign. Here we pause for a snack of crackers, chocolate and cheese sliced with the Swiss Army knife I gave Steve 10 years ago. I stow the knife in my “first aid kit” – a ziplock baggie crammed with bandaids, pepto-bismol, hand sanitizer, sunscreen and other essentials. As we sit, eating our food and drinking in the beauty of the scenery, I glance down at the rocky terrain. “Look!” I exclaim, picking up a rectangular rock with a perfect heart embossed in black on the flat surface. I put the rock in the baggie and minutes later we begin our hike downhill – a much faster trip since I’m not stopping to snap photos or snag a lungful of oxygen.
We reach our Jeep in just over an hour and 20 minutes, just in time to escape the rain that starts falling in a fine mist. After driving to Cameron Lake where the road dead-ends, we head back to the village of Waterton for a warming cup of coffee for me and the inevitable ice cream for Steve. It isn’t until we arrive back at the RV that I discover the first-aid baggie, with Steve’s knife and my heart rock, is missing. It’s not in my back pack and not in the Jeep. Steve is upset over the loss of his Swiss Army knife; I’m more upset about the rock. Steve wants to hike back up the Lineham Lake trail the next morning to get the missing items. That’s crazy, I tell him – what if we get to the end and don’t find the baggie? The next day dawns with clear blue skies and bright sun. We discuss whether to stay another day at Waterton, head up to Banff and Lake Louise, or just pack up and head home. We opt for the latter, and when we reach the U.S.-Canadian border, the agent there tells us that snow is predicted that night for Banff. We decide we’ve made the right decision – we’re not ready for snow in August.
The drive home is long, boring and certainly not scenic once we cross into eastern Washington – at least until we get close to Seattle. The terrain in eastern Washington reminds me of South Dakota, flat and featureless, with little vegetation or change in landscape to relieve the monotony. We stay overnight near Redmond, where our son, Timothy, lives. The plan is to meet him for dinner, but he gives us the wrong address and we wait for him at Ivar’s, a casual seafood restaurant in Seattle while he’s sitting with his girlfriend at another Ivar’s 40 minutes away. We’re too exhausted after driving all day to drive anymore, so he agrees to meet us the next morning at the RV park where we’re staying and we head home for a dinner of leftovers.

August 11 – Home again!
We’re home, and it feels good! Our house is just as we left it, with the addition of a few spiders in residence in the corners and crannies, and weeds snuggling into the ground cover and shrubbery in the yard. We spend a day unpacking the motorhome – it’s amazing how much stuff we’ve collected, in addition to the necessities with which we started our journey. We spend another day scrubbing and shining it up in preparation for putting it up for sale, and it spends a couple of days at Al’s RV service in Bellingham for an oil change and minor repairs. At the end of August, we run ads online and in the Seattle and Bellingham papers, and get plenty of response. It doesn’t take long to sell “Old Dutch”, as Steve calls our RV. She’s bought by a fellow from Regina, Saskatchewan who flies to Vancouver on Sept. 1. We pick him up at the airport and take him to our house to look over the RV, and he drives away with it that evening. For us, it’s the end of a journey in more ways than one.
People ask us if we miss traveling or if we’re sorry we sold the RV. The answer to both questions is no. We had an extraordinary trip with experiences and sights and people we’ll never forget, but we were ready to come home and begin the next phase of our lives. We’re traveling that road now, with no regrets.

Grand Teton National Park

Driving from Rapid City to Cody, Wyoming we head into steep, narrow one-lane mountain passes. The morning sun gives way to cloudy skies, then wispy fog which quickly becomes thick and impenetrable. Here we are driving a 38-foot motorhome towing a Jeep on this narrow, spiraling road, with fog so dense we can see only about 10 yards ahead. I’m sitting in the passenger seat, gripping the arm rests as Steve deftly and confidently maneuvers our vehicle around one turn after another at 15-20 miles an hour. We’re moving at a snail’s pace and to me, even this speed seems too fast. We crawl along for 10 miles or so, past dense forest on our right and to our left, the sharp rise of mountains, then steep canyon. At last we slip out of the fog, leaving it gratefully behind. The scenery, of which we were dimly aware through its shroud, is breathtaking: tall ponderosa pine, granite mountains clefted by cataclysm and the patient, endless effect of wind and water over thousands of years. On our right, we see a deep and rocky gorge; a river courses far below, continuing its timeless work. It is a dramatic vista which we discover is one of many in this part of the country.

We are scheduled to reach Grand Teton National Park by Monday evening; we have made non-changeable reservations. But even as the miles slide past us, it becomes apparent there’s no way we’ll reach Teton this evening. We pull into Cody, Wyoming, around 6:30 p.m. and notice a WalMart as we head toward the edge of town. We see a few RVs in the parking lot and I say to Steve, “Why don’t we just stay here tonight and leave early tomorrow morning for Teton?” It’s late and he’s tired from a long day of difficult driving. He agrees and we pull into the WalMart and head around to the side of the parking lot where we think it’s less conspicuous and safer. There are 8 or 10 RVs and 5th Wheels camped out here, and it appears some of them are well-established – I wouldn’t be surprised if their children are enrolled in the local schools.

The next morning we head out, passing through landscape that gives meaning to the term “Big Sky Country.” The mountains roll on endlessly, vast and humbling. You feel power and confidence here – the landscape doesn’t allow whining or excuses. As we get closer to the east entrance to Yellowstone – the route we must take to get to Grand Teton National Park – we realize there’s no way we could have made it to our destination last night. The entrance road to Yellowstone is under construction; it’s narrow and unpaved in places, and because of the construction, the entrance closes at 8 p.m. Even if we’d made it through the entrance in time, there’s no way I’d want to be driving on this road at dusk or in the dark.

We arrive mid-morning at our campground in Teton National Park. It’s the only full-hookup campground in the park, and the nightly rate is proof – we’re paying $44 a night to be squeezed in cheek by jowl with other RVs. Nevertheless, it’s a pretty park, tree-shaded and in a great location near the visitor center, grocery store, museum and other conveniences. After getting hooked up, we ride around on our bikes to check out the area. We discover there’s a no-hookups campground nearby; set in the woods, each site is tree-shaded and only $15 a night, with beautiful views everywhere. We move to this campground on Friday and spend 3 days there.

Grand Teton National park is far more spectacular than either of us had imagined. The Tetons (French for breasts!) tower above the park, distant and postcard stunning in the flat light of midday, then subtle and deceivingly close in the waning twilight.

We spend the next 5 days biking and hiking on the roads and trails of Teton. One day we drive to Jackson Hole to take Princess to the vet for her weekly blood test. The vet charges $65 to draw blood and clip her nails. Guess you pay a premium for everything in celebrity-studded Jackson Hole. We walk around town, grab a one-buck burger for ourselves and a vanilla yogurt for Miss Priss at Mickey D’s, and leave. It’s the typical tourist town – lots of high priced shops filled with stuff you don’t need and wouldn’t take a second look at if you saw it at home.
We’re told by the campground host that the Snake River dinner raft trip is worth the $52 each, so we sign up. We take a vintage ‘60s bus to the site on the river where pontoon boats wait. Dinner is early – 5 p.m. – but good: New York strip steak grilled to order, fresh pan-fried trout, corn on the cob, homestyle red potatoes, salad and rolls. We strike up a conversation with another couple at dinner. We agree that all that’s lacking is a bottle of cabernet, and they tell us they almost brought wine, but decided not to at the last minute. So we quaff our iced tea and finish up with cherry pie for dessert. The raft trip follows the 2-3 foot deep Snake River for 8 miles; the water flows relatively fast if placidly. The big draw of the trip is supposed to be the wildlife that can be seen on the shore. We see a herd of elk and some bald eagles and not much else. But we enjoy the peaceful journey and listening to our guide’s stories about the region. Most of all, we marvel at the strength of the young woman manning the oars on the bow of the raft. She’s the one doing all the work, shifting the large, heavy oar from one side to another in the water while constantly adjusting the rudder to keep us from running aground or into the rocks. She’s one of only 2 women doing this job. Her quads, lats and biceps are well-developed but sleek, and seeing her fit body makes me vow to renew my workout regimen.
During the next several days, we hike a variety of trails, but our favorite is the Jenny Lake trail. The day we head out for this hike, it’s overcast and drizzling, but we decide to go anyway, figuring if it starts pouring we can always head back. We take our Niagara Falls “Maid of the Mist” plastic ponchos just in case, and sure enough, just a few yards down the trail, raindrops spatter on our heads. The ponchos keep us dry and the rain is light so we keep walking along the path which follows the shore of the lake. Soon we’ve left the lake behind and are deep in the forest. Wildflowers and berries bloom along the path – bright crimson Indian paintbrush, lavender asters, fireweed, yarrow, queen anne’s lace – and the leaves shimmer with moisture from the rain. Occasionally we pass massive boulders that have tumbled down from the granite peaks surrounding us. The trail winds along through lush undergrowth, then climbing as it coils around rocky cliffs, then again disappearing into the forest past waterfalls and rushing creeks to emerge in a meadow that’s both desert-like in appearance yet verdant with plants and flowers. And everywhere are the Tetons – sprawling slopes of granite, igneous, gneiss, limestone and sandstone, rising to nearly 14,000 feet into the sky at the highest peak (Grand Teton). As we walk, we see evidence everywhere of natural history in process . . . mountainsides strewn with the rocky litter of glaciers, water carving niches into the face of cliffs as it splashes over the edge, tree roots easing open cracks in billion-year-old stone, decaying stumps nursing seedlings into life. As we hike, the rain clouds dissipate and sunshine and blue sky put a sheen on the landscape. We hike for 5 hours and then turn around to catch the boat shuttle back to the trail head. We decide we should have started earlier in the day so that we could have gone farther; this was one of our favorite trails on this whole trip.

Most people who come to Teton and Yellowstone, the park rangers tell us, spend a week or more at Yellowstone and one or two days at Teton. We do the reverse and we’re glad we did. The two parks are connected so it’s easy to drive from Teton to Yellowstone; we discover that Yellowstone is interesting geologically, but it doesn’t have the breathtaking beauty of Teton, and while there are some interesting hikes and more wildlife to be seen (especially elk and bison), in general we’ll take Teton.

After several days at Teton, we drive to Yellowstone for the de rigeur viewing of Old Faithful spouting off and to see the mudpots, hot springs, fumaroles (steam vents) and geysers for which the park is famous. Yellowstone sits atop a live volcano, and its many thermal features, we learn, are a result of superheated water trapped in the earth and seeking a means of escape. When the water or steam finds a crack or fissure, it bubbles up as mud mixed with sulfuric gas or a skin-singeing hot spring, spurts out as steam or explodes furiously in an airborne geyser, depending on the amount of water present and the size of the vent or fissure. The mudpots are interesting to watch as they burble and spit, but after a while the rotten-egg smell of sulfuric gas is overpowering and makes me sick to my stomach.

The Black Hills from Lovers Leap